Lady of the Sky
by JalendaviLady
Summary: AU. A smuggler's tale after ROTJ. Intended as a stand-alone companion to Signs of Life. (work in progress on fixing some formatting issues in later chapters)
1. Prologue: They Call Me Lady

Lady of the Sky

By JalendaviLady

Prologue: They Call Me Lady

Disclaimer: I do not own _Star Wars._

If you recognize any characters, locations, or things in the following story, George Lucas owns them.

----

They call me Lady.  
  
I suppose it started the first few times I used my ship to move human cargo.  
  
Now, don't look at me that way. Willing human cargo, although I will admit I've raided slave ships before. But that was after...  
  
After the willing cargo that was unwilling.  
  
I suppose it doesn't matter if I explain, since the Empire is falling apart at the seams now and no one I smuggled is probably alive.  
  
I changed my hair, changed my way of life. Traded an upper-class personal starliner for a stock freighter, pocketed the change along with whatever I could grab from my regular accounts before I took to ground.  
  
I transported fine wines from Alderaan to Coruscant. Those who bought from me supplied the finest restaurants of the Empire, places I could have once walked into and been instantly seated, even if the waiting list had been years long. On the return trips to Alderaan...  
  
I smuggled Jedi.  
  
Padawans, Knights, Masters, waves and waves of initiates of all ages.  
  
Elder Jedi clinging to their Code, chanting it over and over as a cherished thread to a life they would never know again. The younger generation, Jedi who had been attracted to each other for years but had either respected the Code or met in back hallways, smiling and giggling at each other in-between emotional break-downs.  
  
Heart-breaking. Heart-warming.  
  
...  
  
They only knew me as Lady, another person dislocated by Palpatine's rise. His friends were the first I smuggled. They knew perfectly well who I was.  
  
If it hadn't been so dangerous, if I wasn't hiding so much, I would have let myself get drunk when I had to deal with them. But all it would have taken is whispering his name in a moment of drugged inhibition for me to be in big trouble. Even today, that could be a problem. A big problem.  
  
I'm still under cover. Deep. Years ago, in the Clone Wars, I got a hold of a Senate report listing the number of Spaarti cloning cylinders ordered for a military base somewhere in the mid-rim. I was on the planet once, after a smuggling run, and saw the cylinders being destroyed as part of the Emperor's public crusade against clones, Jedi, women, aliens... anyone standing in the way of his schemes or who is not a human male produced by normal reproduction.  
  
I still have a bet running with my friend Sala on whether or not he would eventually bring back the age-old skin color discrimination. 50 Republic credits, and the final value rose with each credit coin he melted to make Imperial money.  
  
Nearly a hundred cylinders fewer were destroyed than were installed. Palpatine siphoned them off somewhere, and I've spent over a decade tracing them.  
  
I sell food, staple items and delicacies. Cultural items. Books. Holofilms. Anything that can keep for months in my smuggling compartments or the rooms I once shipped wine in.  
  
And I trade information on the side. Harmless things. Never anything that could cause harm.  
  
I think I've nearly found the cylinders. Just a few more years, if that. To lose my cover now... the funds lost from Sala acquiring a Force-scrambler, a simple medallion created by I don't know who that kept even Jedi Masters from identifying me... the years of tracking... It would be such a waste...  
  
...but oh so tempting. Palpatine is gone. The world is changing. I have contacts who wouldn't care who I once was, people I could stay with for a while. I could go to the Alliance and offer my help.  
  
Something about the cylinder thing bothers me, though. Palpatine has to have had a plan for those stupid things. I'm nearly running out of sources. And if I go to the Alliance, to see if Mon Mothma will let me get anywhere near their resident ex-Sith...  
  
Somehow, word will get out about what I'm really looking for when I ask if anyone ever saw a shipment of cloning cylinders move through a port. I'll go from being a smuggler with big questions to being a real threat.  
  
And that would be if everything goes right. If he recognizes me...  
  
The Jedi-smuggling can't hurt me, not now. But there are other things, other secrets.  
  
...  
  
There's a reason they call me Lady, even now.  
  
It started among his friends. Their way of respecting me for who I once was. It became a symbol of my honesty, my regard for the well-being of my fellow beings.  
  
"Lady can be trusted," even the worst gangsters whisper when I walk into Smuggler's Run. "Lady plays fair, always. Lady never sells anyone out to the Empire."  
  
And then there was the street-scamp I cared for during five of the darkest years of my life. It was the most legal I had ever kept the ship in my entire life. He was a Corellian street-rat, one of Shrike's leavings. He stowed away on my ship, barely a teenager. He left afterwards, joined the Imperial military.  
  
I've heard rumors about what he's been doing since then. About the Wookiee he freed, the court-martial, the smuggling for the Hutts...  
  
If I hadn't been searching so hard for a way to survive, hadn't discovered the loss of the cylinders, I would have offered help.  
  
Maybe I can get him to use his position in the Alliance... No. I will not ask him to become what I have become. He has his own life now. His own goals.  
  
...  
  
I am Lady. I go by no other name.  
  
I hear the one who I was insulted for what she did in a moment of youthful innocence and do not flinch. I cross my toes in my boots as I drink toasts to the wishes of others that she who I was should burn in the Sith-Hells for what I did, for they would see if I crossed my fingers as in the ancient customs from before time.  
  
The Emperor has been dead for weeks now, and Vader is no longer a threat. I will stay hidden as long as I can. If I find the cylinders, I may need to tell the Alliance, if there is a danger to the galaxy, but he will never know who I really am. Not if such is up to my choice.  
  
...  
  
Sometimes, I let myself not be Lady, while my ship floats in space.  
  
Sometimes I crawl down into one of deepest compartments, where I keep the few bits of my old life I've kept. Nothing much, a piece of japor carved jewelry, my wedding ring, a small stack of holostills. A stack of holonet flimsiplast printouts starting from about 5 years ago with a few older bits and pieces, rumpled from being handled through these long years alone.  
  
And I cry.


	2. Chapter 1: The Begining of the Trail

Lady of the Sky

By JalendaviLady

Chapter 1: The Beginning of the Trail

Disclaimer: I do not own _Star Wars._

If you recognize any characters, locations, or things in the following story, George Lucas owns them.

----

My parents would have cringed if they had ever had any inkling of the bars and taverns I've been in over the last 20 or so years.

It all started in Dexter's Diner. Everything starts in Dexter's Diner. The Clone Wars, the Jedi evacuation of Coruscant... I wouldn't be surprised if Palpatine had met his Sith Master in the building Dexter bought for his diner. It was just that kind of place.

I was meeting some of the remaining members of his clan, Deer Clan, and some other Jedi there. I had a feeling I was already being observed... he had disappeared, and the Purges had started, though unofficially enough that nothing official was happening. Yet. So, I came to the meeting in tight blue spacer pants and a loose white men's shirt tied at the bottom to make up for the extra length. My hair was in the simplest of braids possible. I wore makeup like I'd never worn makeup before: to hide true features by using hideously overdone coloring to detract the eye.

Only Deer Clan recognized me. They called me Lady then, for the first time. The other Jedi never knew who saved them.

I left the meeting with the barest idea of what I was about to get involved in.

And then, the holonews viewer in the diner flared to life.

Palpatine had just declared himself Emperor and outlawed the Jedi from leaving the planet.

That was when I knew what had happened.

The only further marks left on the world by the woman I once was were a few transactions at back-of-nowhere unmonitored bank terminals.

I disappeared without disappearing.

Dexter's place was a gourmet restaurant compared to the place I'm in now.

I'm not even sure what the name of this spaceport is. I'm on my way to the Outer Rim, again. I've been from one end of the galaxy to the other more times than I want to count. I could program a hyperdrive for every twist and turn of the major routes without a navcomputer, if the data in my head weren't so rare and valuable. I had to stop for supplies somewhere.

I'm not even sure this place qualifies as somewhere, actually. But it sells fuel and the food is halfway edible, so it's better than being dead in space. Not by much, though.

I suppose some would consider this constant narration of my life as a sign that I've finally lost my grip on reality. For 20 years I have been without family, without confidant, without true friend. If a bit of mental instability is all I have to show for that, I'd say I'm doing better than I should be. I have too great a grip on reality, and no one to share it with other than myself.

Even when I was training Han in the ways of honorable independent trading, I was mostly alone. He was alone too. I never asked him about what he had seen while in Shrike's group, and he never asked me anything about where I'd come from. We had an understanding about our secrets and our rights to keep them.

I wish I dared go to wherever the Alliance is right now, even if only to let him know I am still alive and traveling. He might even be willing to help, or might know someone who could help.

I don't want to be that close to Vader, yet. Even if he ends up being the final source I need access to in my search for those stupid Spaarti cylinders.

No! This can't be. No.

I finally got to my intended destination, only to be given the name of one of the first planets I visited years ago.

Palpatine backtracked on the delivery path. I know he was the one to sneak out the cylinders now, not that I ever really doubted it at all; only he would be devious enough to braid a shipment of illicit materials (for that is what the cylinders were and are) over thirty planets before shipping it back through one of the first ones. He probably repeated the same process over again at least twice.

Doing this the normal way could take decades more, if tracing the cylinders is even possible now.

I feel like sticking my hand through a wall. I can't afford what the repair costs would be though, so I head home to my ship.

The trail has led me to strange places, and familiar ones. I've been in spaceports that hadn't seen a landing in years. I've been in bars that never knew what surface cleaner was.

The trail has never come to a dead end before. There is no place to go; the only sources I have where the trail leads are the same sources I spoke to years ago, and I doubt anyone remembers anything other than what that group of people told me.

The trail has ended, and I still have no clue what is going on!


	3. Chapter 2: A Lady's Dilemma

Lady of the Sky

By JalendaviLady

Chapter 2: A Lady's Dilemma

Disclaimer: I do not own _Star Wars._

If you recognize any characters, locations, or things in the following story, George Lucas owns them.

News filters through the world of smugglers and independent traders slowly, ever so slowly.

It's been days since any news filtered from the Alliance. Not that I really care... but I do. I'm in my hiding place on my ship, so I can care.

That sheaf of flimplast prints off the holonet is proof enough of how much I care.

Prints of a few very impressive Senate speeches by a woman—no, she was a girl then, not much older than I was once, long ago—who tried to change the system from inside and came to realize there wasn't much left to salvage.

Tales of a strange Tatooine bushpilot—or shouldn't that be dunepilot? crazy linguists—who came out of nowhere to save the Alliance. I've seen more than a few girls in spaceports from Bakura to Belkadan swoon over the slightest image of him in the news.

I can't blame them. He did grow up handsome.

Maker bless him. Maker bless them both.

How can I feel so protective toward someone I barely even had contact with, much less two someones?

But that was another time... another life...

There's no news, not even an addendum to the Imperial Traitor List, now including the near-complete crews of several Star Destroyers and a Super Star Destroyer.

The list used to be a few thousand on its wanted list, a list almost unending on the executed list. For the first time since the dawn of the Empire, the wanted list is the same length or longer.

I'm still high on the list. Or, rather, she who I once was is. Funny, those who oppose the Empire curse she who I was, and the Empire still wants to execute me... she... whoever.

She who I was can go nowhere. She who I am can go almost anywhere other than Imperial garrisons, secret bases, and the like.

She who I was would have access to her family now. She who I am will be lucky to get within a parsec of her family.

Who am I?

My leg still hurts from where I banged it this morning.

I suppose I really should explain. The medallion only blocks my sense in the Force, not the sense of other things in the Force. I can sense what little I could always sense, but to most Force-users I'm a blank wall now. A really blank wall.

I've never been very Force-sensitive at all, except in dealing with a few people I was close to. Him, the children when they were very small, my sister. That and huge disturbances. I'm not good at blocking, so when Alderaan blew up I passed out for a long time, deep in space.

It's dangerous sometimes, but by the time anyone realized I had even minor Force-gifts, the Jedi were fleeing Coruscant for their lives.

I felt him this morning. I haven't felt anything from him since he turned, which is no minor blessing. He was in pain, but it wasn't physical. Something was wrong, deeply wrong.

I fell in shock and from the shared emotion.

Something was wrong, that I could feel clearly. A stationary Force-disturbance.

But there was something else.

The rumors from the Alliance were correct.

I felt him. My Ani, not whatever he became, and he was clinging to the Light as he was buffeted by the disturbance's effects.

He turned back.

He turned back!

And then there is the thing that now makes my head and heart hurt worse than my leg.

I can't go to the Alliance now, for if I do, no one anywhere will be keeping an eye out for those stupid cylinders. If I let the Alliance know, if I beg them for help, news that someone knows of them will leak out somehow. The stakes are too high.

And anyway, I would have to remain Lady anyway to keep up the search. A glance across a room at my children and my once-lover, is this something to risk the world for? Am I willing to take the risk of destroying them by seeing them?

And so, I sit glancing through my holonews printouts, coldpack on my leg, and ponder why Palpatine needed cloning cylinders.

What I ponder scares me.

Author's Note: As of this chapter, _Lady of Sky_ is posted as far as it has currently been written. Thanks for reading.


	4. Chapter 3: Bittersweet Memories

Lady of the Sky

By JalendaviLady

Chapter 3: Bittersweet Memories

Disclaimer: I do not own _Star Wars._

If you recognize any characters, locations, or things in the following story, George Lucas owns them.

----

Sometimes I miss the people I once knew.  
  
Certainly most of the senators were idiots, and I used to have long fantasies about ways to kill the Nemoidian delegation, but there are friends I wish I still had beside me.  
  
I miss my sister. I still don't know what happened to her. Palpatine did some very messed up things to his home planet when he became Emperor, and I've never gone home to survey the damage. Too many people there might remember me, and I can't afford to not be Lady again quite yet.  
  
I miss Mom and Dad. I hope they survived. I haven't heard anything from or of them since I became Lady, and given the opinions the galaxy holds of their infamous daughter, I hope they are someplace safe from those who might blame her mistakes on them.  
  
I miss Sala. I suppose I could just nip into her settlement, but her people like their undisturbed existence. If I accidentally led the Imps to them—I'm sure I'm not being tailed, but one can never be too careful when snooping around in all the wrong places—I could never forgive myself.  
  
I miss Hannar and Shani. The way the flecks of gold shone in his eyes when he was laughing. It's amazing. He's been undeniably dead for years, one of the brightest rising stars of the Jedi, and I miss his eyes. Shani... I wish I knew what happened to her and her babe. Was she alone? Did the child live? There's been no news of her for years. Hannar lives on in Coruscant street legend, but no one ever mentions that she was pregnant. I suppose she wanted things that way, but it's all rather maddening when all one now has are memories.  
  
I miss Saman and Zora. They were made for each other, the street-rat and the street-heiress. I've been down to her homelands once or twice since they disappeared, but not even her sister has any real news about what happened. Only a rumor that they were caught up in a raid somewhere during the Purges.  
  
I miss so many people...  
  
...  
  
I miss Anakin.  
  
I think it's the first time in many years I've been able to admit that I miss him and not just the way things were.  
  
Sure, he was scary when he started going Darkside.  
  
Really scary.  
  
There were good times, too. If there could have been just good times...  
  
Life doesn't work that way. Good and bad balance.  
  
But how can anything balance the things that have happened in my lifetime?  
  
...  
  
I sit in a bar on a little world I can't remember the name of, sipping something that takes like spiked watered-down oranji juice. I don't really care what it is; I'm not trying to get drunk.  
  
I've been doing a lot of sitting in bars lately. Oh, if Daddy could see his little girl now, he'd probably have a heart attack. Or a mental breakdown. Maybe even both.  
  
News is still slow.


End file.
